Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, October 15th.  The sun will rise at 7:58.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 6:57.  The moon is new today, and won’t be visible.

This week we’ll be looking at some of the wonders of the autumn sky that might better be seen in binoculars or a small telescope.  Tonight we turn our attention to the Double Cluster, a fine pair of star clusters just below the W of the constellation of Cassiopeia the queen located in the northeast.  Draw a vertical line down from the middle star of the W through the next star into the glow of the Milky Way.  The Double Cluster appears to the unaided eye as a brighter glow of the Milky Way.   This is confirmed with binoculars.  But in a small telescope it becomes two piles of sparkling diamonds.  The clusters are much younger than the sun so their brightest stars are blue-white to our eyes.  The average distance of the two from earth is 7,200 light years and the are 1200 light years from each other.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Double Cluster as it would be seen in a small telescope.

Chart for finding the Double cluster in October. Created using Stellarium.